DUCHESNE

By John D. Barton

The community of Duchesne is located just above the junction of the Strawberry
and Duchesne rivers in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah. It was first
identified as a potential town site by Father Escalante when the
Dominguez-Escalante expedition camped near the present-day town 18 September
1776 while on their epic journey. Duchesne is strategically located not only
due to its location at the junction of the rivers but it is also at the mouth
of Indian Canyon, the major route into the Basin through the Tavaputs Plateau
from Price.

The town came into being in 1905 when the United States government opened the
region to homesteading under the Allotment Act. The land that forms all of
Duchesne County and western Uintah County had formerly belonged to the Ute
Indians as part of their reservation. A.M. Murdock, an Indian trader at
Whiterocks, obtained permission from the government to set up a trading post at
the site that became Duchesne City. With the assistance of several other men,
he set up a large circus tent for a general store and trading post. Government
surveyors laid out the streets and the survey was accepted by the government on
18 October 1905. Other settlers soon pitched their tents and built pioneer
dwellings that were replaced over the next months and years with more modern
buildings for homes and businesses.

The town was originally called Dora, after Murdock's baby daughter. This name
was replaced for a short time by the name Theodore, in honor of President
Theodore Roosevelt. But when town to the east adopted the name of Roosevelt,
it was thought that two towns in the same county named for the same president
would be too confusing for mail delivery. The name Duchesne was utilized for
the new community. The name Duchesne is taken from the name of the river that
runs through town and was likely named by fur trappers in the 1820s in honor of
Mother Treasa Duchesne founder of the School of the Sacred Heart near St.
Louis, Missouri.

On 1 January 1915 the eastern portion of Wasatch County was split off to form
Duchesne County; by a vote of county citizens, Duchesne City became the county
seat. Today Duchesne is a community of approximately 1,200 people. It hosts
four chapels (two LDS, a Baptist, and a Catholic), two schools (an elementary
and a high school/junior high), several businesses and the county offices. For
several years, work on the Central Utah Project boosted the community's
population and business; a park and a bowling alley were built to make the city
more attractive for construction workers. However, in the mid-1980s the dam
projects were completed and Duchesne's population declined by several hundred
people. The economic base of the community is presently centered in farming
and oil industry. As county seat, Duchesne's major celebration is the annual
county fair held in August. Due to the late date of settlement of the
community, even at the present date several of the older citizens remember
coming into the region as pioneers as childern with their families.